


Bookmarked

by Tashilover



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Writer!Carolyn, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-14 19:56:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2201064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tashilover/pseuds/Tashilover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In all, Carolyn wrote thirty-six novels.</p><p> </p><p>Based off a prompt in the CP meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In the beginning she used to keep her books in full view in the house. But when she had friends and family over, she got questions and requests she didn't want to answer.

Why do you write about sex? Why do you write about gay sex? Are you gay? You must be gay, so why don't you just admit you're gay? Don't you know gay people are a sin? Are you a slut? You must be since you write about so much sex. Have sex with me. Have sex with me and put our experiences in a book. I know a lot about sex, ask me questions.

Her fans asked her less embarrassing questions. When she met Gordon, she never told him what she use to do as a younger woman. She even went so far as to ask her editor to give her a pseudonym so she wouldn't have to constantly hide her books in her own home. Gordon always cracked a cruel joke about the books, sneering at the bodice ripping covers, mock-reading a few passages. When he discovered the gay novels she had written, he yelled at her for bringing such 'filth' into their home, threw away all of her copies, and declared she was no longer allowed to read anything by that 'dirty Margaret Chapler'. She kept writing, though hid the copies her editor sent her away from Gordon's eyes.

When Arthur was born, Carolyn was uneasy having erotic novels in the house. She didn't care what Gordon thought, but a child was a whole different situation. In the end Carolyn donated the rest of her books to the library. They were delighted to have them.

Romance novelists don't have a long shelf life. They constantly have to write new material or people forget about them. After Arthur turned two, Carolyn stopped writing all together, and soon her novels disappeared from local book stores. Her fans stopped writing to her. Her editor stopped calling her. No longer people contacted her for interviews. It was a personal choice she made for herself, but it still broke her heart.

Today, nearly thirty years later, Carolyn opened a new document on her word processor.

She only meant to play around, perhaps just to see if she could still do it. Now that she was here, she hesitated, feeling like a dirty old woman. Was she too old to write stuff like this? Was she planning to get it published?

Staring at that little blinking line, she took a sip of her tea, remembering what she used to tell her younger, inexperienced fans:

You write for yourself. So write what you want and don't stop. Don't ever stop.

She couldn't believe she forgot that. With quirk of a smile teasing her lips, Carolyn touched the keyboard. Her fingers danced.

' _Marvin bit his lips and threw his head back, desperate to keep quiet. Was he keeping quiet? He didn't know, his head too filled with lust to keep a coherent thought in his head. It didn't help Dougal was kissing his neck, licking and sucking his flesh while pounding fiercely into Marvin's arsehole. It was so filthy, Marvin thought, feeling droplets of lube falling out of him and hearing it drip onto the plane's lavatory floor. If their CEO heard them, they would certainly be fired. Oh, but the thought of getting caught only spurred him on, and he clutched to Dougal, hissing, 'Come on!' as he slithered a hand between them to grab at his own cock. 'Fuck,' Marvin groaned, pressing his lips against Dougal's ear. 'You're going to make me come...' '_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing because I love of the idea of erotic novelist!Carolyn

By the time she was done writing a little over an hour later, she had five thousand words written and a trembling, aching hand. Carolyn leaned back, rubbing the knuckles as arthritis burned sharply deep in her bones. She wanted to write more, but she knew she needed to take a break. Besides, her tea went cold.

She looked over the words, feeling a sense of accomplishment and pride. How easy it was, the words just fell out of her so seamlessly. She remembered when she had deadlines and she would stare at her typewriter, glaring at it, every word she wrote just crap piled on crap.

What she wrote here wasn't perfect. Grammar and spelling aside, there were a few things she didn't like. She needed to change a few words to make the sentences flow easier. The whole paragraph here didn't work out. She wrote the word 'cock' too many times, she should switch it up. For two characters who loved each other, this resembled too much of a random fucking rather than a passionate sex scene. There should be more kissing.

Carolyn giggled. She had only used 'Marvin' and 'Dougal' as a base, but the story, like most of her works, took a life on its own. After the fucking was over, Dougal went home and struggled with the homophobia that had been spoon-fed to him since he was a child by his overly conservative father. Marvin had his own crisis, he realized he was slowly falling in love with Dougal, but was afraid because men like Dougal broke his heart before. Falling in love was not an option and he knew he had to do something soon or else his job and his heart could be at stake.

Carolyn knew she needed to change the names. They fit so damn well, she didn't want to.

It was not as if she imagined the real Martin and Douglas fucking in the plane (they better not be or else she'll have their balls). It was fantasy. It was imagination. It was part of a process of thinking up scenarios taken from real life and seeing what happens if you throw a random element in there. _What if_ Martin and Douglas started fucking? How would that change their relationship? How would that change their perspective on life?

On one hand it was probably pretty damn sick Carolyn thought of such things. They were real people, who had real jobs and relationships and would not appreciate her writing such filth about them.

On the other hand, nobody has to know about this. Ever.

Carolyn got up from her seat, taking her cool cup of tea with her. Before she stepped away to go to the kitchen, she leaned down and clicked 'Save' on the file.

 

 

 

 

 

A month later, she finished the book.

She hadn't entirely proofread it yet, but it was done. Nearly three hundred pages, sixty thousand words of Marvin's and Dougal's passionate love affair on an aeroplane. At this point Carolyn couldn't change the names if she tried. She was stuck with them.

Every hour of every night before she went to bed she wrote. She ignored Arthur's repeated attempts to get her to play a board game with him. She broke two dates with Herc just so she could focus on her writing. She even went so far as to bring the laptop with her to the airfield, though that quickly stopped when Douglas inquired what she was doing.

It felt so fucking good to write. She couldn't believe she cut out such an important part of her life, and for so long. She didn't realize how much she missed it.

The question was, now what? She had a sixty thousand word novel saved on her laptop and she didn't know what to do with it.

That was not entirely true, she knew what she wanted to do: she wanted to write a **sequel**. She was not done with Marvin and Dougal just yet. Though Dougal finally accepted he was attracted to a man, his daughter has not, and has threatened to severed all ties with him if he continued to sleep with men. In the meantime, Marvin was being blackmailed by an old girlfriend who was threatening to expose the fact he cheated on his CPL.

Oooh, Carolyn tingled with the idea of it all.

Would... would it be such a bad thing to get it published?

Carolyn still had the phone number of her old editor in her address book. It was not as if Martin or Douglas read romance novels. Besides, if Carolyn used her old pseudonym, nobody would know it was her. Plus, it would mean extra money in her pocket. Gerti only had a few more good years on her. Carolyn didn't want to die suddenly, leaving Arthur with MJN's debt. Her life insurance policy only covered so much.

"Oh, what the hell," she said, reaching over to her purse to get the address book. "I'll see what happens."


	3. Chapter 3

AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, THE NEWEST NOVEL BY MARGARET CHAPLER

The sticker slapped on every copy seemed a bit much, though Carolyn couldn't deny it gave her the shivers every time she saw it. Already she got a few phone calls asking for interviews, and fans she hadn't heard from in years were writing to her again.

There was Brenda from Illinois, who confided in Carolyn about her bisexuality and said the novels gave her the strength to come out to her parents. Carolyn always wondered what happened to her, and last week she got a letter from Brenda, along with a wedding photo.

There was Frances, an English professor from New Zealand, who taught about homosexuality in fiction and in other media. He wrote to Carolyn saying he used her books as an example in his classes, and was very pleased to see she had come out with a new book.

She had not told Arthur about the book, her old shame creeping up on her. The boy was old enough to know and understand, and yet Carolyn couldn't bring herself to tell him. How do celebrities deal with these kind of things? 'Darling, don't watch that movie, mummy is naked and getting fucked in that movie'?

It was pretty obvious who the characters were based off of. Thankfully Arthur didn't read romance novels either, but now Carolyn wondered how long she could keep this up. At some point he was going to question where the extra money and phone calls were coming from.

And what about Herc? This whole time he's been under the impression Carolyn was simply keeping a diary. He's asked her a few times why the sudden interest in writing and if he could read a few passages. She's told him no, that this was something she was doing for herself. Thankfully he's respected her wishes and left it alone.

For the first week her book has been on the shelves, Carolyn has basked in the joy it was to be published again. Extra money aside, the sense of pride she got every time she saw ' _On a Wing and a Prayer_ ' was incredible. The glow wouldn't last long, experience has proved that many times over. She was going to bask in it regardless. It has been twenty-five years since she's published anything. She had a right to stroke her own ego.

Even the shops at the airport carried her books in paperback form. As she was buying Arthur a Twix for the ride home, she saw her book on display. She chuckled and mentally gave herself a congratulatory pat on the back.

"Oh my, Margaret Chapler started writing again?"

Carolyn dropped the Twix. She stared at Douglas in horror as he moved forward, picking up a copy. "You..." she said slowly. "You know who she is?"

"Of course I do," Douglas said. "My first wife was a huge fan of hers, so I saw her books all over the house. Didn't she stop writing because of her abusive husband or something of the sort?"

Carolyn felt her cheeks burn. There was indeed some controversy surrounding _Margaret Chapler_ and her reasons for leaving the writing world. Carolyn fought hard to keep her life out of public view. To hear how her marriage to Gordon was talked about, to have it sound like she was being beaten and abused, pissed her off.

Douglas was studying the cover art. It displayed a single male model, handsome and very young, wearing a First Officer's uniform. The young man was staring wistfully off to the side, and sitting behind him was a generic two-engine plane. The man looked nothing like how Carolyn described Marvin or Dougal in the book, thankfully.

Don't read the summary, don't read the summary, don't read the summary, don't read the summary.

He didn't read the summary. Instead he took it to the register, paid fifteen pounds for it, and said to Carolyn as he passed, "I never actually read her books before. I want to see what the fuss is all about."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm surprised you guys really liked that last chapter! Lolololololol!

She was dead, she was so dead.

God, _why_ did she pick the names Marvin and Dougal? It started out as a joke, then it turned into something serious. She could've used any other generic name on the planet. Brian, David, Frank, George- any of those would've been fine.

Fuck, she had no one to blame but herself. She didn't need to use those names. She didn't need to make them pilots. She also didn't need to publish it under her old pseudonym, causing an uproar in the romance world.

It was going to take Douglas less than a second to realize who those characters were based off of. That was assuming he only reads the first page or the summary in the back. If he went any further in the book...

Dread coiled deep in Carolyn's stomach as certain passages popped up in her brain.

_\- "We... we shouldn't be doing this," Marvin gasped out. He was trying so hard to keep a rational thought in his brain, but with every suckle Dougal made on his cock blurred his mind out. "If we're caught..." Good god, he couldn't bring himself to care. Not when the sight of Dougal's lips were wrapped around him. Who knew the only way to shut Dougal up was with cock-_

_-Dougal's hand pressed hard against Marvin's mouth, keeping him quiet. Outside of the toilet stall, the voices of Luther and Hank could be heard. They were washing their hands, discussing some new Tom Cruise movie that had recently come out. They would be gone in another minute or two, Dougal was confident in that, and yet he couldn't help but nudge his dick a little deeper into Marvin, making him whimper. "Hush," Dougal whispered to him, licking his lobe as he did so. "Shhh..." It didn't help Marvin was playing with his own cock, smearing the pre-come all over the head. Dougal felt bad for the cleaning crew-_

_-Marvin wouldn't shut the fuck up. He kept going on and on about proper procedures and safety and other such bullshit. Dougal couldn't believe Marvin could keep such a straight face as he spoke, barely even blinking as Dougal pounded into him at rapid speed. He was sure he was leaving bruises on Marvin's anus, and yet the man prattled on like he was giving a lecture to a bunch of students. "You're too reckless!" Marvin continued on, his arms crossing his chest. "We're lucky none of the passengers are planning to sue! This isn't only your job on the line here, Dougal, it's mine as well! I'm the Captain, you're the First Officer, and when I give a command, I expect you to follow through!" Dougal gritted his teeth. "Why-won't-you-shut-up?" He bit out each word with a thrust of his hips. He was only a few seconds away from reaching orgasm and yet Marvin barely broken a sweat. Without a pout, Marvin leaned forward and pecked Dougal gently on the lips. "You can't make me." And with that, Dougal came, shuddering sweetly, his cock spurting deep inside of Marvin-_

With passages like those, who wouldn't sue? Forget the years they've known each other, forget the time they spent together, the moment they read a single paragraph from that book, it was all over. Carolyn could only hope Douglas wouldn't take everything.

 

 

 

 

 

Carolyn wasn't sure she could face Douglas or Martin. For the past week she angst over her ultimate fate, the guilt so strong it was practically making her sick. She almost didn't want to come into work that morning, wanting to put it off as much as she can. She was going to face the music soon or later. Along with Arthur's gentle prodding, Carolyn dragged herself out of bed to get ready for the day.

Poor, innocent, Arthur. He thought she was suffering from the flu. It was going to be interesting to see how he'll react to his mother being a dirty old woman. The drive to the airfield was a quiet one, a solemn one, prompting Arthur to ask if she wanted to go back home and cancel today's flight. Carolyn said no. If she was going to lose all her money, she might as well try to get whatever she can for Arthur's inheritance.

The dread became worse when she found herself right in front of the office door. On the other side, she could hear Martin and Douglas shuffling around. Taking a moment to steady herself, Carolyn opened the door, expecting for Douglas' and Martin's lawyers to swoop down upon her like hawks.

"Morning, Carolyn. Morning, Arthur," both Martin and Douglas said at the same time. Martin was busy writing out today's flight plan, his head bowed, his hat brim covering his face. Douglas, as usual, was doing nothing to help. He was laying on the office couch, reading a book. It wasn't the one he bought.

It was still a Margaret Chapler book, one of Carolyn's most popular. It had stayed in print much longer when the others were slowly dying out. This one was officially out of print too, but the occasional worn copy popped up in second-hand shops and dentist magazine racks. The book Douglas was reading looked like a discarded copy from a library. Carolyn could see the barcode on front.

What was he doing? Gathering more evidence to sue her? "What happened to the new book?"

Douglas blinked up from his reading. "Hmmm? Oh, I made the mistake of putting it down while grabbing coffee. Someone stole it," he said, mumbling. "I bought this one from the sales rack at my library. At least this copy only cost me twenty pence."

"So... so you didn't even get a chance to read it?"

"Humph, no. I don't think I'm missing out, thoguh. I'm already half-way through this book and frankly, I don't see the appeal. Her writing is boring."

OH THANK GOD.

A small part of her was huffing in indignation at Douglas' criticism of her work, but she couldn't bring herself to care. A gigantic weight pulled off her back, allowing her to breath for the first time in days. _He didn't read it_. And thanks to his inability to recognize real literature, he was never going to read it. Good lord, she was too old for these type of emotions. She was going to give herself a heart attack.

Douglas looked up at her. "Carolyn, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Carolyn said. She did feel a bit lightheaded from the giddiness. "I'm perfectly happy."

 

 

 

 

 

In a small hotel room in Paris, Martin laid flat on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He had his arms raised above his head, his hands playing idly with the pillow cases. "You know, we could still sue."

"Too much work," Douglas said, loosening his tie. "Besides, have you seen how happy she's been the past few weeks? I don't think she called us 'idiot-drivers' once this entire time."

"So you're okay with this? With the fact that she's publishing erotic novels about our lives?"

"Besides the similar names and general descriptions, do you honestly see yourself as this Marvin character?"

Martin made a face, then shook his head.

"Me neither," Douglas said. He took off his jacket and drapped it over a chair. "I think the guilt Carolyn suffered over the week was punishment enough. Did you notice she gave us a fruit tray as well as a cheese tray this morning?"

"I was wondering about that. You think she feels that guilty?"

"Oh, _immensely_. I suggest we ride this train as far as it can take us. It's only fair. Now then..."

Douglas pulled out _On a Wing and a Prayer._ Several pages had been bookmarked with multicoloured tape. "How 'bout we try chapter fourteen? It involves a detachable shower head."


End file.
